Mutability analysis in java

Abstract

A system and method for detecting the mutability of fields and classes in an arbitrary program component written in an object oriented programming language is disclosed. A variable is considered to be mutable if a new value is stored into it, as well as if any of its reachable variables are mutable. The system and method uses a static analysis algorithm which can be applied to any software component rather than whole programs. The analysis classifies fields and classes as either mutable or immutable. In order to facilitate open-world analysis, the algorithm identifies situations that expose variables to potential modification by code outside the component, as well as situations where variables are modified by the analyzed code. An implementation of the analysis is presented which focuses on detecting mutability of class variables, so as to avoid isolation problems. The implementation incorporates intra- and inter-procedural data-flow analyses and is shown to be highly scalable. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithms.

Description

field of invention [0001] The present invention relates to the field of object-oriented programming languages ​​for computer programs and, in particular, to detecting the mutability of fields and classes in arbitrary program components. Background of the invention [0002] When introduced in late 1995, the programming language Java took the Internet by storm. The main reason for this is that Java is an interpreted programming language, which basically means that it uses a different compilation / execution paradigm than programming languages ​​such as C or C++. Programs written in a high-level programming language such as C or C++ that can be read, written, and understood by humans need to be translated into machine codes that can be understood by the computer that actually runs the program. That's what the compiled program does. Also, the compiler optimizes the code as it translates it. The end product of compilation is machine code, which by definitio...

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The result is that an unprivileged applet can impersonate a trusted signature, causing serious security problems

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